The Open Selection Firewall

Tuesday, I explained why Open Selections can be so much more powerful than blind selections. Today I want to talk about their biggest weakness—and how to keep that weakness from undermining the effect.

If I show a non-magician a poker hand and tell them, “Think of any card,” and then name the card they’re thinking of, here’s what happens. First, there’s a brief moment of surprise. But then, if you ask how they think it was done, they’ll frequently say something like, “Does everyone pick that card?”

It’s an insane idea. Does everyone pick the 4 of Spades? What world would we live in where that might be the case?

But when people are confronted with something they can't explain, they don't necessarily come up with a good explanation. They come up with an explanation that's good enough to let them stop thinking about it. And "everyone picks that card" often does the job. As does the related idea that you somehow steered them toward that card with something you said or did.

If the premise of the effect is a genuinely free choice, then we need to eliminate this escape hatch from the spectator’s mind.

What we need is something I'm calling an Open Selection Firewall—a bit of scripting that prevents the spectator from explaining away their choice after the revelation.

How Not to Do It

Here are some things I believe you shouldn’t say before an open selection if your goal is to emphasize the freedom and unpredictability of their choice.

The problem with most of these is that they introduce some criterion for making the choice. And once you've introduced a criterion, you've given the spectator a reason to believe their choice wasn't entirely free.

1. "Don't pick the obvious one."

You're now directing them toward an unusual choice. If you predict it, they can reasonably suspect you were steering them away from the obvious choices.

2. "Pick something completely random."

People aren't particularly good at consciously generating randomness. They may still interpret this as guiding them toward particular “random seeming” options.

3. "Go with your first instinct."

This is almost the opposite of what you want. It makes the "everyone picks that" explanation especially appealing.

4. "Change your mind three times."

Changing their mind is fine, but specifying an exact number turns the process into a procedure controlled by you. It’s better to allow them to reconsider as often or as little as they like. (Again, unless you're trying to establish that you're controlling their thoughts.)

How To Do It

Here is the long version I use. I don’t always go into this much detail, but this is the fully fleshed-out idea. Then I’ll give you a shorter version.

At the end of this, you might think, “Well, I guess everyone picks that one,” or “You must have influenced me to choose that.” So I want you to give your mind as much freedom as possible in arriving at your choice.

Consider all the possibilities. The obvious ones and the less obvious ones. The ones that appeal to you and the ones that don't. Don't try to be predictable or unpredictable. Don't try to make a clever choice or a random choice. Just give everything equal consideration.

Then let a few possibilities come to the front of your mind. Move between them a little. And eventually, for no particular reason, settle on one. Even then, you can change your mind again if you want.

The important thing is that you arrive at a choice that even you couldn't have known, a few moments ago, you were going to make.

The purpose of this is to frame the selection as fully unpredictable and free from influence. There are a lot of words there, but they amount to nothing. What I mean by that is that they can’t point to anything you said as steering them toward or away from any particular choice. Consider everything, we’re telling them. A few possibilities will stand out (based on no stated criteria). And from those, you’ll settle on one. And you can keep it or change your mind from there.

I’m a big believer in slowing down in your effects at the moment of selection. So I have no issue with using the longer version as written above.

If you need something shorter that hits on the same ideas, use this:

“Consider all the possibilities, not just the obvious ones or the ones that appeal to you, and let a few come to the front of your mind. Move between them, settle on one for no particular reason, and change your mind again if you like, so you end up somewhere even you couldn't have predicted.”

The longer version is a lot of words to get someone to make a simple choice. But the words aren't really for the choice. They're for what happens afterward. You're not just trying to make the choice feel free while they're making it. You're trying to make it still feel free after you've demonstrated that you knew what it would be.